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AFRICAN IMMIGRANTS
IN THE UNITED
STATES OF AMERICA
SLAVERY, a very sensitive word in all
ramification of life, a word that represents
violence, destruction, brutally, oppression, and
the exploitation of different races either due to the color of their skin or due
to other reasons based on the perspective of the oppressor. Slavery has
been a very important part of the history of mankind in its utmost worst. It
has rare its ugly head in many places, depending on which nation or people
are found to be inferior at that point in time in history. Africa has been
intimately connected with this history, both has a major source for slaves
and as one of the distinct areas where slavery and oppression was prominent
in the ancient civilization.
SLAVERY in short can be explained as a form of exploitation. One of
the main characteristics of slavery is the idea of ownership of human beings
and in turn referring to the prospect of them being a property owned by a
superior being, an inference of a human being as a commodity that can be
bought and sold. This are people who are treated as outsiders, who are
aliens or in fact denied their heritage through judicial or other sanctions.
People stripped off everything that make them identify with one race of
ideology, and this results in a problem of lost heritage or detachments from
anything that make them value themselves as human beings with dignity
and identity. Therefore slavery is essentially a fundamental way of denying a
race or people the rights and privilege of a society so that they can be
exploited for either economic, political or social purposes.
African emigration started during slavery but it was an involuntary kind
of immigration which can also be called FORCED IMMIGRATION which means,
Africans were shipped, sold and bought against their will in the early century.
Black immigration started then and now there is an uptick in African
emigration to various parts of the western world including the UNITED
STATES OF AMERICA.
African immigrants make up a very small portion of the population of
the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, but according to Pew Research Center
analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data, their overall numbers are growing and
this number has been doubling every decade since 1970. As stated in Pew
Research Center analysis, there were 2.1 million African immigrants living in
the United States in 2015, up from 881,00 in 2000 and a substantial increase
from 1970 when the U.S. was home to only 80,000 foreign born Africans.
They accounted for 4.8% of the U.S. immigrant population in 2015, up from
0.8% in 1970. According to Monica Anderson from Pew research.org, “the
growth is evident among recently arrived immigrants. When compared with
other major groups who arrived in the U.S. in the past five years, Africans
had the fastest growth rate from 2000 to 2013, increasing by 41% during
that period. (Africans are also a fast-growing segment of the black immigrant
population in the U.S., increasing by 137% from 2000 to 2013.)”
Thousands of enslaved Africans were brought to the U.S. in the 16th
century through the Transatlantic Slave Trade, but the huge voluntary
migration from Africa in this new age is a new trend. Some of the main
culprits of this recent surge can be attributed to the Diversity Visa Program
and Refugee Act of 1980. This act made it a little easier for people fleeing
war riddled areas, like Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, and Democratic Republic of
Congo to resettle in the U.S. The top birthplaces of African immigrants in the
U.S are from NIGERIA, ETHIOPIA, EGYPT, GHANA, and KENYA. According to
Pew Research Center, African immigrants moving to the U.S. are more likely
to settle in the South (39%) or the Northeast (25%), than in the Midwest
(18%) or West (17%), while the largest numbers of African immigrants are
found in Texas, New York, California, Maryland, New Jersey, Massachusetts
and Virginia. Each of these states is home to at least 100,000 foreign-born
Africans. African born immigrants tend to gravitate to the major immigrant
receiving states in the U.S and they also tend to settle in niche and ethnic
enclaves because the ties they derive from the presence of earlier
immigrants often help in their adjustment process into their new
communities.
Some of the reasons for the recent surge in African immigrants all over
the world can be attributed to things like civil unrest, inter and intra ethnic
power struggles, regional tensions, and military coups in countries such as
Angola, Ethiopia, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Somalia.
Additionally, natural and man-made disasters created a large number of
refugees, and during this period deterioration in socioeconomic conditions,
unemployment, and related reduction in standard of living heightened the
desire of African immigrants to migrate to places like the United States.
Some of the other reasons are also the professional and educational
opportunities in America, being that the United States of America is
considered to be one of the major centers of higher education and provides a
higher chance of attaining economical liberation.
Festus E. Obiakor wrote in his book “There exists a significant yet
unique level and magnitude of problems that immigrants of African descent
have to grapple with in their efforts to settle down into their new American
lives. This fact makes the continuity of the natal culture very difficult”. An
integral and irrefutable part of the fate of the immigrant is the age-long
cargo of dilemmas that often characterizes the new life. For instance,
regardless of the proximity or distance of the new location to the old, some
of the issues the new immigrant must grapple with are cultural conflicts,
culture shock, and intergenerational contestation (Arthur, 2000). In America,
African-American males who attempt to take advantage of opportunities
experience intellectual racism and discrimination. Foreign-born African-
Americans face an added pressure because they have to adjust to a new
environment and face the racism as well as discriminatory generalizations
that African-Americans have been facing for many generations. Negative
assumptions about Africa and Africans often lead to the horrible conclusion
that “if you know one African, you know them all.” This type of mindset often
breeds misconceptions about and stereotypical images of Africans.
Children of immigrants face many more difficulties and hardships in
comparison to children of native-born parents. As indicated earlier, even
though children in immigrant families experience higher poverty and
hardship rates and tend to be disadvantaged in their new American
locations, they find ways to excel in school. Based on Ogbu’s (1978) typology
of “involuntary minorities” or “immigrant minorities,” there are different
reasons or frameworks for surviving despite all odds. Afoláyan (2002) studied
the impact of the United States Diversity Visa Lottery initiative on a critical
mass of elite immigrants from Nigeria. He found that those in this group are
drawn to the United States from high level academic and civil service
positions only to come to the new home and find themselves doing the kind
of jobs meant for unskilled labors. For example, in the first 2 years of settling
down in their new home, which was the focus of this study, some of these
immigrants worked in fast food restaurants, home health services, and other
jobs that would not have remotely crossed their imaginations. Like their
Somali counterparts, it is quite understandable that these immigrants had to
be more preoccupied with the means to survive than in the maintenance and
continuation of their natal culture.
The issue of racialization is also a topic of conversation, as African
immigrants who are ethnically diverse because of the different tribes in
different countries in Africa and the fact that being black in the continent
makes you the racial majority in their home countries, African immigrants on
getting to the United States face a different reality when it comes to issue of
race and color and how to handle the fact that they are now in the minority
in U.S. Janet T. Awokoya wrote “ In the U.S. system of racialization, in which
race is the most salient identifier, their cultural differences are often
overlooked, and they are expected to redefine their identities based on
America’s racial categories (Landale & Oropesa, 2002; Waters, 1999)”. Race
and color is particularly detrimental for Black, as opposed to non-Black,
immigrants because Blackness in the United States is linked to negative
social stigmas (Bryce-Laporte, 1972). Further, because of their phenotype,
many Black immigrants encounter the discrimination and prejudice that
African Americans experience (Rong & Brown, 2002; Waters, 1994).
JANET T. AWOKOYA had an interview with an African immigrant youth
called Tope in her journal talking about her identity experiences saying:
When family friends or children say, “Oh, we don’t believe that you’re
Nigerian,” it hurts me because I might not have the perfect accent, because I
didn’t live there all my life, but I’m still as much Nigerian as they are. I still
know as much as they do, believe it or not, but it kind of hurts me
sometimes. Because they’ll say, “Oh, you’re American.” I’m not going to
deny that I have Western influences, but they want me to act Nigerian, and I
don’t understand what they want me to do to show I’m Nigerian. Later in the
interview, Tope shared another upsetting experience she had with a
schoolmate: I was talking to my classmate the other day and she was like,
“So what do you define as African and what do you define as Black
American?” And before I could answer, she was like, “I see you as purely
African, not even from America at all,” even though I’ve grown up here more
than half my life. And she was like, “I’m Black American. You’re purely
African! You’re African! [sharply] and that’s it.” They won’t let me be part of
any culture. In other interviews conducted by Ashly Nsangou and Lauren
Dundes shows how the intersection of race and ethnicity are compounded to
make Africans feel disconnected from African Americans, especially in
regards to the issue of them compulsorily attending college without. Ashly
Nsangou interviewed Imani who commented that it is difficult for non-
Africans to understand “what it means to be an African girl”. She further
explained:
“The food I eat, the clothes I wear, and the way I speak all add to my
identity as an African. I don’t consider myself African American because we
don’t think the same way and we don’t have the same values. For example, I
said earlier I had no option but to attend college but some of my black
friends in high school had parents that gave them the option of either
attending college or doing something else that made them happy.”
Other African who were also interviewed shared the view of the importance
of college education in the African immigrant household:
“My parents said college or I was on my own.”—Leeda
“I brought it up to my dad once that I did not want to attend college
after high school and he almost had a heart attack. Whether to go to college
has never been an option in my household.” —Aisha
“Being raised in an African household, I knew I had to go to college in
order to be somebody in life. So, I only gave myself one option after
graduating high school which was to go to a four-year college.” —Subira
These interviews show a distinct identity crisis among African
immigrant youth that were born here or foreign-born, the issue of which
culture do I fit with and which culture is going to accept me without judging
me or expecting me to act a certain way in a certain kind of gathering or
environment. Based on the conversations I’ve had with friends and family I
can say the main issue between Africans and African-Americans is the issue
of culture, culture is something that separates people even when they are of
the same race. The fact that these two groups from the same race based on
the western identity spectrum have a huge disparity in cultural and social
context in which opportunity and progress are viewed and have been
experienced - an African immigrant might enter into a gathering full of white
people and easily blend along or see an opportunity to show his/her
capabilities to other colleagues as a positive situation, an African-American
might enter into the same room and instead of just being his or herself,
might see race or might feel intimidated because socially, in a western
world, a black man or woman is programmed to feel inferior or feel like they
are being judged because of the color of their skin, whereas an African
immigrant who wasn’t programmed that way sees it differently.
Africans generally see education as a direct pathway to attain
economical elevation, in turn they emphasize the importance of education
and impose that on their kids especially when it comes to African immigrants
in the western world. A report, by the Pew Research Center, found 69
percent of sub-Saharan African immigrants in the United States have some
college education. That number is six percentage points higher than the level
for native-born Americans, and far higher than levels in Europe. ANN M.
SIMMONS wrote that Batalova's research found that of the 1.4 million who
are 25 and older, 41% have a bachelor's degree, compared with 30% of all
immigrants and 32% of the U.S.-born population. Of the 19,000 U.S.
immigrants from Norway — a country Trump reportedly told lawmakers is a
good source of immigrants — 38% have college educations. Ann M. Simmons
also wrote that the New American Economy study found that 1 in 3 of these
undergraduate degrees were focused on science, technology, engineering
and math — "training heavily in demand by today's employers." That report
also found that African immigrants were significantly more likely to have
graduate degrees. A total of 16% had a master's degree, medical degree,
law degree or a doctorate, compared with 11% of the U.S.-born population,
Lim said.
The issue of brain drain in the continent of Africa is the after effect of
the high rate of emigration to the western world, in recent times and for the
most part, political and economic difficulties often is one of the reasons why
many Africans move away from their home country. Haider (1997), for
example, focused on the brain drain in Somalia and how this brain-drain
problem has led to a massive loss of manpower in this terribly impoverished
developing African country. Migration of well-educated people affects the
various attempts by the African government to develop and maintain a
proper and substantial economic development process. The brain drain
reduces the number of professionals and takes attention away from
problems and goals such as technology, low-cost preventive health care, and
the construction of low-cost housing. Haider noted that between 1960 and
1990, the migration of high-level professional and technical manpower from
developing African countries to the United States, Canada, and United
Kingdom amounted to more than 1 million skilled workers.
The brain drain phenomenon from many African nations is connected
with the political instability and the poor economic conditions of those
nations. In settling down in the foreign Western world, the first preoccupation
of African immigrants is forging the survival instinct and, when possible,
providing economic support for family members left back in their homeland.
Indeed, it is common practice for many African immigrants to be sole
financiers of relatives left behind in Obiakor, Afoláyan / AFRICAN IMMIGRANT
FAMILIES.
Logan published data on U.S. immigration showing that a larger
proportion of Africa's total migrant pool is made up of professionals
compared with the rest of the world and that generally the growth rate of the
professional migrant flow from Africa is higher. The Economic Commission for
Africa and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimated that
between 1960 and 1975, 25,000 high-level Africans left the continent for the
West. Between 1975 and 1984 this number increased to about 40,000. By
1987 the number had almost doubled to about 80,000. A report by the
Pollution Research Group at the University of Natal in South Africa shows that
Africa has lost one-third of its skilled professionals in recent decades, and it
costs the continent about US$4 billion a year to fill up the capacity gaps
created. The report contends that about 60,000 middle- and high-level
managers were lost between 1985 and 1990, and about 23,000 qualified
academics emigrated each year in search of better working conditions the
drain of the high skilled doctors from Africa is the most staggering.
The information provided by the United Nations Development
Program's (UNDP's) "Human Development Re- port" (1993) states that, more
than 21,000 Nigerian doctors are practicing in the United States; at the same
time Nigeria's healthcare system suffers a severe depletion of qualified
medical practitioners. Of Ghanaian doctors, 60 percent of those who trained
locally in the 1980s had left the country by the end of 2000. In Sudan, by
1978 the figure was about 17 percent. Human capital flight has reached
huge proportions in Zimbabwe, with the worst-hit sector being the health
professions; doctors and nurses have migrated to countries such as Britain,
the United States, Canada, and South Africa. South Africa has also been hit
by the brain drain. The departure of skilled professionals since the end of the
apartheid era has been spurred by crime, low salaries, limited prospects for
career advancement, and deteriorating medical facilities.
In Conclusion, as African immigrants are increasing in the UNITED
STATES there are a lot of issues that are they are facing or having to go
through to attain any type of success or economic stability. Race, culture,
identity, poverty, discrimination, this are some of the issues they are hit with
when they arrive in a country like U.S. where they suddenly transform from
being the majority race or skin tone to the minority. Moving from a culture
that didn’t see race or skin tone as way to judge ones intellectual ability or a
way to treat someone to one that does at a considerably higher rate. Some
Africans will tell you I’m not black or African American I’m African, they don’t
say this because they suddenly don’t think they have a black skin tone but
they say this because they have a completely different culture or perspective
on how to about attaining success or economic growth compared to their
African- American counterparts. Identity crisis of recognizing me as African
and not just labelling me as black because have black feature. Its two
completely different point of view that needs to be put into consideration.
The African immigrant are going to keep on increasing at the years go by
and the world becomes more globalized but hopefully in years to come
they’ll be recognized as Africans not just blacks.
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